J is for JUMP

Happy Friday friends! 🎉 I see that we are nearing the end of August and that it’s time for kids to get back to school, which means, Autumn is heading our way! I think I’m ready for cooler weather right now! I just love all things Fall as it’s my favorite time of the year! What is your favorite season?

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is “J”, and the hostess has chosen “J is for JUMP” (this can be anything that jumps!) *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.* I hope you’ll join in the fun with us. Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I knew when I saw the theme for this challenge that I had to use a pile of leaves for “jump“! I also think the best critters for that would come from Lawn Fawn of course! Can you see the little “wee” mouse jumping out from the pile?!

I started with a white card front by blending some blue inks in the background for the sky. I also used the Lawn Fawn Leafy Tree Backdrop: Portrait die to go over my ink blended sky background. The frame and tree were cut out from dark brown woodgrain texture cardstock. I used some green cardstock to cut the circle from the die set to place behind the tree as well as the LF Grassy Hillside Border die behind the tree and frame as well.

For the Autumn leaves pile and sentiment, I used the LF Jump for Joy stamp set/dies. All images were colored with Copics and I white heat embossed the sentiment over the ink blended sky. For the mice critters, I used the LF You Autumn Know stamp set/dies. For the little bunny, I used the LF Butterfly Kisses stamp set/dies. Some of the die cut images were just attached and others were popped up with foam tape for dimension. I actually wanted my pile of leaves to be larger, so I stamped, colored and die cut two of them. (I needed that little mouse on the right to be jumping out from the pile too!)

This was a fun one to make because I kept pulling out different sets to figure out which critters I wanted to use, but these cute mice get me every time. It makes me look forward to seeing the colors, sights, smells and sounds of Autumn coming. I hope you’ve enjoyed it too and I look forward to seeing all of the “jumping” that will appear in the gallery!

Thanks so much for stopping in today! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

Ally’s Angels – #97 Anything Goes
The Creative Crafters – #91 Anything Goes
Sweet Stampin’ – Animals
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – #260 Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2533 Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
Craft Rocket – #128 Animals

Penny’s Guest-UnFROGettable

Hello friends! Welcome to June! The “lazy days” of Summer are here! I’m hoping I can be lazy this Summer, but not sure about that! LOL

I’m very happy to share my project with you today as a guest design spot I won from challenge #594 at Penny’s Paper-Crafty Challenge Blog! This is a fortnight (bi-weekly) challenge starting today and the theme is always Anything Goes Using Paper! Hope you will stop by the blog to see the team’s inspiration and play along! Here’s the project I made for the challenge:

They gave me this super cute image called “Frogtini” by Pattie’s Creations to use, so I colored him up with Copics and added some stenciled waves at the bottom along with some blending of yellows and blues above him to create this relaxing scene. I cut him out with a stitched circle die and layered him onto a silver mirror scalloped die cut circle.

I used a fun card sketch I found along with pulling some papers and a sentiment out from an older card kit I had in my stash to complete the card. For the A2 sized top folding card base, I used a corner chomper to round the edges and then I used some more of the yellow ink over the background where the circle image was going to be for a bit of softness and color.

I embossed a strip of the silver mirror cardstock with a 3D embossing folder and rounded the edges of that strip along with the green paper strip to create my layout. I popped up the circle image with foam tape over top.

Lastly, I white heat embossed the “unfrogettable” sentiment and cut it out with a coordinating die and placed it at the bottom of the circle with foam strips behind it. I used the other part of the sentiment and stamped it directly above the frog’s head.

For some more finishing touches, I attached some green sequins, used a glitter brush pen for the frog’s sunglasses and covered the martini glass with Stardust Stickles along with some green Stickles for the centers of the green sequins.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today! I had fun coloring him up! Thanks so much for stopping in and I wish you a very hoppy and relaxing day!🐸

Challenges:

Hand Stamped Sentiments – #464 Sketch
As You Like It – Favorite Type of Embossing & why? (I really like both, but my all time favorite is the heat embossing because it’s so magical!)
Crafty Catz – #694 Anything Goes with twist: “make us smile”
Creative Fingers – #302 Anything Goes
Daring Card Makers – Tic Tac Toe (I used across middle row)
Cut It Up – #331 Anything Goes with a die cut (used two circle and coordinating sentiment dies)
Gem of a Craft – #6 Anything Goes Cardmaking/Papercrafts

Patriotic Pandemonium

Hello friends! I had a day of some crafty fun and wanted to share things I’ve made for some challenges. I absolutely love the red, white and blue colors. Most of the time it’s associated with patriotic colors and July 4th Holiday, but I’ve decided to take not just the colors, but the theme using one stamp set and a sheet of paper to create different looks with it.

First up is this really cute mouse waving his flag with a fun patriotic theme…which is what this new stamp set from Inky Stamper (called Americana) was intended for. I printed out some freebie papers and used them on all of my cards here today. I colored Ralph up with Copics and popped him up on a scallop circle silver glitter cardstock and stamped the sentiments and stars with red and blue inks. I also added some sequins from the Stars & Stripes sequins mix at Inky Stamper and added some silver Stickles in the centers of those as well as the stars. I also added one of the flags from the sequins mix next to the sentiment at the top. (I’ve used these on all of these cards too.)

I’ve made this card for SCS Teapotter Tuseday challenge as a Patriotic Congrats card for someone in the military whose been promoted to Colonel, so this worked out really well for sending this one out.

For this card, I wanted to share that a teeny tiny image from a stamp set can be fun to use in a different way as well. I took the “bomb popsicle” image that was stamped and colored and popped them up with foam tape over die cut stars from white glitter cardstock. I’ve used some more of the freebie papers and added a sentiment that was white heat embossed over red cardstock and cut out with a banner die. The tiny red stars came from that sequins mix I mentioned above.

I made this card based on a sketch for a challenge that I wanted to enter before it ended too. (Check it out in the challenges listed below.)

And lastly using this same stamp set, freebie papers, sequins mix and color theme, I made a Christmas card with it. I took the little star image from this stamp set and stamped it several times, colored it in and fussy cut several of them out. It’s not that bad when you’re cutting and watching videos while you do it!

I took a circle die and traced a circle with a pencil so that I would have a guide as to where to create my wreath. I stamped a few stars directly on the circle area and then erased the line before I colored them. the other stars that I fussy cut, I glued some on and popped some up with foam squares. I also added an extra star in the center of the silver bow on the wreath.

I added some silver sequins from the same sequins mix mentioned above and then placed some silver Stickles in the centers of them as well as in the center of the stars.

These were so much fun to make with all of the same products and color theme to challenge myself with. I hope you’ve enjoyed them too or been inspired in some way. Thanks for dropping by!

Challenges:

Try Stampin’ On Tuesday – sketch + cold treats (card 2)
Crafting Happiness – Anything Goes (card 1)
Four Seasons – Anything Goes Summer (card 2)
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes with animal (card 1)
Critter Crazy – Anything Goes featuring animal (card 1)
Pearly Sparkles – Christmas in July (card 3)
Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes (card 1)
Challenge Up Your Life – Patterned Paper (all cards use papers)
The Paper Fun Day – Anything Goes optional: red, white & blue (all cards)
Try it On Tuesday – Use 3 colours (red, white and blue)

One Layer Challenge and More Riley Fun!

Hello friends! Hope you’re having a great week so far! I have a few cards to share with you today that I’ve made over the weekend having some fun.

Vicki-InkyStamper-FebCAS

I love the cute little grin this goat has! This goat along with all of the images used are from the same stamp set by Inky Stamper. This month, the Inky Stamper FB group challenged us to create a ONE-LAYER only card…not even ribbon/twine, etc. could be used! I haven’t made one of these CAS or one-layer cards for quite some time, but I enjoyed the play with it.

So I’ve used masking paper to create this by stamping the goat over masking paper, stamping the goat over the front of the card and then placing the cut out masked goat to cover him up. I then die cut a circle over another piece of masking paper and placed the left over piece on top of my card where I masked my goat image. All that was left was the circle opening and this is where I ink blended the opening with distress inks. I also stamped the small line of grass with green ink.

I took off the circle mask along with the goat mask. I colored up the goat with Copic markers and then I stamped the triangle image from the same stamp set along with the sentiment. I then added 3 black gems and colored the inside triangles with a glitter brush pen. I also used my corner chomper to round the two bottom corners.

This last weekend there was another OOAK event and there was another fun card kit from Riley and Co. I didn’t attend the entire event, but joined in to see what the new release was about while I was making my cards from the kit. I’m pretty sure that there are no more of these kits left as they sold out of the first batch and had to make more.

The critters are so fun to color, and I really loved these papers from the kit as they have me anxiously awaiting Spring to get here! I’m bundled up, drinking hot liquids and trying to stay warm, but nothing beats a warm Spring Day! 😁

To get a better look at each one of these cards up close along with what’s going on for the insides, check out the gallery below. If you’re directly on my blog website, you can click on each photo below to enlarge it:

The cat’s bugged out eyeballs is too funny! I’ve used foam tape to pop up his sign.

Just wanted to share my recent makes as I’m still trying to work at finishing up some Valentine cards along with getting going on the wedding invites. Sure enjoy seeing the wonderful inspiration from everyone and hope that you’re all staying safe and warm friends! Thanks for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges (Top Goat card ONLY):

Challenge Up Your Life – Triangles
Happy Little Stampers CAS – “Inky”
CAS on Friday – Male
Krafty Chicks – Stamp Act
Just Add Ink – Minimalist

Retirement Time and More Whimsy Stamp Workshop Retreat Projects

Hello there friends! It’s hard to believe that we’ve made it to November and rounding the corner to end 2020! It’s been a very strange year all the way around, but I have to say that it’s a bitter sweet day today as hubby will have his last day of work on his 40 year career as an electrician. So today I’m dedicating my post to him:

This would be a perfect situation for my hubby and something he talked about all the time…which was to go out to the lake, relax, enjoy some fishing time on a boat including staying in a cabin. Sure look forward to spending some time with him doing just that next year too!⛵🌅 He is a hard worker and certainly deserves it.

The stamp set that I’ve used for this card was a perfect scene image from Whimsy Stamps called Happy Place. I colored it up with Copic markers and cut it out with an oval die and layered another oval piece from black cardstock.

I found some papers in my stash that I thought would be perfect with this, so I’ve used the Whimsy Stamps Pierced Border Trio Dies to cut it with to fit half-way on my A2 white side folding card base. Before attaching the piece down over the base, I took some Mustard Seed Oxide Ink and sponged across the middle of it and then used some Tumbled Glass Oxide Ink slightly at the top. I then attached all piece including the image panel.

I took the sentiment from the Happy Place stamp set and stamped one of the sentiments at the top of the oval panel and then I white heat embossed the “relax” sentiment over black cardstock and cut it out with the Whimsy Stamps Quick Strips die set, glued it along the edge and trimmed off the excess. Lastly, I’ve added some Whimsy Stamps It’s a Party Enamel Dots.

Then of course I wanted to share the inside of the card which you can see that I’ve used the same image from the stamp set from the front of the card and just stamped that in a lighter grey ink color. I masked off the edge of the inside of the card so it didn’t stamp completely. I also used it in the same way on the envelope as well.

For the greeting, I took the Whimsy Stamps Happy Large Word Die and cut it out with some black cardstock and then attached it with liquid glue. I stamped the “retirement” greeting right underneath it from the Whimsy Stamps Happy Sayings stamp set with black ink.

It may be hard to tell in the photo above, but I’ve also taken a glitter brush pen and went over the sun as well as the water for some added sparkle.

This card was actually fun to put together and I was thinking about the future and all the things we had talked about the last few years and getting ready for this day. Things are a bit different than we had envisioned of course, but we will have “our time” for sure. We’re so excited about it!

This card is being handed to him this morning while we have our coffee before he leaves for work on his last day!😀

And now I also have some more finished kits that I’ve been working on since the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Workshop Weekend! I’m still really enjoying finishing them up and still have MANY more to do! I’m so amazed at how much we received and very happy that there were several Christmas projects which I’ll be working on next! For now…here’s more of the finished kits:

This was for kit 12 and I LOVED the cute dragon in the purples! This card is going to my youngest grandchild as she is my “PURPLE girl”!!

This is the INSIDE of Kit 12. It was a really cool “FUN FOLD” design! I put my image off to the edge so I had room to write a message.

This was for Kit 6 and the entire scene was made using Copic coloring including the sky background! The squirrel and pumpkins were popped up with foam tape.

This was for kit 21 and my first time practicing with no-line coloring!

This was for kit 22. This mega large sunflower is gorgeous! Loved coloring and fussy cutting it out!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my projects and post today! I sure have been having fun just playing and trying out different things with my cards. I do look forward to finishing up these kits as we get near the Christmas time! So be watching for more of those!

Thanks for dropping in with me today and I’ll see you again soon!

Challenges: (For Retirement Card ONLY)

Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + coloring
A Perfect Time to Craft – Anything Goes Nov
A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes Nov
Love to Craft – LTCCB52 Anything Goes Nov
QKR Stampede – #407 Anything Goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #145 Anything Goes
The Corrosive Challenge – #11Nov Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2044 Anything Goes

{Cupcake Inspirations} Bithday Celebration Day 12 -Party Ending Soon!

Here we are friends! This is my final day of inspiration to share with you on Day 12 of the special celebration over at {Cupcake Inspirations} for our 500th “birthday celebration” challenge!! WHAT A PARTY IT HAS BEEN!! WOW!🧁🎉

Today, we are highlighting with our last but not least sponsor Inky Stamper – Please check out the challenge blog for more details about this sponsor.

The DT was generously given a stamp and die set to use for our creations:

Vicki-CIC500-Day12-InkyStamper

I have used this Oh so adorable Cupcake stamp and die set for my 4.5″ square card design. So I thought it would be fun to create a fun little scene where you have the mouse coming out of his little “mouse hole” in the wall where he discovers this delicious looking cupcake with the sprinkles falling about! 😂

I started by masking off the middle of the square panel and created the “floor” by ink blending from the middle out. I then moved my masking by covering that area up and used the negative from an oval die cut area to ink blend the “mouse hole” on the scene. Lastly, I wanted it to look like a “wall”, so I just took a brick stencil and inked over it to go around the “mouse hole”

I stamped, colored and die cut the image and then popped him up with foam tape over the scene and stamped the sentiment underneath him. I just glued on the sprinkles for the card. I mounted the image panel over a die cut scallop square and then added a strip of sparkle washi tape over the card base. (The scallop square panel was popped up with some craft foam.) Hard to see in the photo, but I’ve brushed some glitter over the cupcake frosting!

Thank you so much for joining me here every day to check out the inspiration I’ve made from each of our sponsors. I’m so glad that you took the time to celebrate right along with us! I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

The House That Stamps Built – A2620 Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
Cute Card Thursday – Inky! (used distress inks, masking and stencils for background)
Creative Knockouts – #365 Anything Goes

{Cupcake Inspirations} Birthday Celebration Day 11

Today is a new day! We are on day 11 of celebrating over at {Cupcake Inspirations} with another feature of sponsors for our 500th “birthday celebration” challenge!! YEEOWZA!

Today, we are highlighting Rachel Vass Designs – Please check out the challenge blog for more details about this sponsor.

The DT was provided with digital image sets to use for our creations:

Vicki-CIC500-Day11-RachelVassDesigns

I have the gorgeous Sunshine Daisies digital set for my design here by printing the image along with the sentiment that came with the set on a piece of Bristol watercolor paper. I remember hubby brightening up my day a while back with some very pretty colorful rainbow of daisy flowers he brought home, so I based my colors that way.

I’ve used my watercolor markers and water brush to color the image with and then I took some yellow sparkle AquaPigment along with some Cream Grey Aquapigment from Brutus Monroe to splatter over top of the design before I cut it out with a Wonky Stitch rectangle die from MFT.

I layered this panel over an A2 top folding Soft Suede card base and finished it off with some clear sparkle sequins that I added some yellow Stickles to the centers.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my watercolor rainbow daisies today! Thank you for stopping in to check my post today! See you tomorrow!

Challenges:

The Divas that Cut…Paper – Flowers + die cut
My Time to Craft – Clean and Simple
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Beautiful Botanicals
Little Red Wagon – #564 Digi Do

{Cupcake Inspirations} Day 10

Hello friends! I’m back again with more celebration fun as we continue with our celebrating over at {Cupcake Inspirations} for another feature of sponsors for our 500th “birthday celebration” challenge!! YAY!

Today, we are highlighting Digital Delights by Louby Lou – Please check out the challenge blog for more details about this sponsor.

The DT was provided with images from this sponsor to use for our creations:

Vicki-CIC500-Day10-DigiDelightsLoubbyLou

Isn’t she a cutie?! I have used Cupcake Josie for my image here that was colored with Copics and cut out with a stitched rectangle die. I used some fun birthday papers I’ve found in my stash to layer my design with along with a sentiment that was white heat embossed and die cut with a banner die that I’ve attached over the design.

I’ve added some glossy accents over the cherry on her cupcake as well as some dotting with a metallic gel pen for the sprinkles as well as for her bows.

Please be sure to add your birthday/celebration creations in the gallery soon before the challenge ends in a few days! We look forward to seeing them all!

Thank you for popping over here today friends! See you tomorrow!

Challenges:

Creative Moments – #197Anything Goes optional pretty papers
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2034 Anything Goes

{Cupcake Inspirations} Birthday Celebration Day 6

Hey there friends! We are on day 6 of celebrating over at {Cupcake Inspirations} with another feature of sponsors for our 500th “birthday celebration” challenge!! FUN FUN!

Today, we are highlighting Bugaboo Stamps & Lawn Fawn – Please check out the challenge blog for more details about these sponsors.

So on our first day, I had used some fabulous products from our sponsor Lawn Fawn. But for today’s post, I wanted to highlight our other sponsor Bugaboo Stamps…

Vicki-CIC500-Day6-Bugaboo

Now how stinkin’ CUTE is this little guy with his ginormous cupcake coming at you?!

I printed out this Picnic Ant-Cupcake2 from Bugaboo Stamps and colored him up with Copic markers. I sponged some clouds behind him and colored some grass with my markers too. I used my oval dies to cut the image out with along with the scallop oval layer behind it.

Found some fun papers from my stash along with the rectangle die, sentiment die, ribbon, twine and button to complete the card.

I “dressed up” the cupcake with some liquid applique that was heated up to make it “puffy” and then added some glossy accents over the cherry on top.

Really had fun with this cutie and I hope he brought you a little smile today friends! Thanks for joining me! See you again tomorrow!

Challenges:

Catch the Bug Challenge – End of Summer (what could be better than celebrating a picnic?!)
Little Red Wagon – Use a Stencil (cloud background)
Creative Knockouts – #364 Something to Say
Aud Sentiments – #258 Anything Goes + Sentiment
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + Coloring

{Cupcake Inspirations} Birthday Celebration Day 4

Ready for more celebrating!? We are on day 4 of celebrating over at {Cupcake Inspirations} with another feature of sponsors for our 500th “birthday celebration” challenge!! Yipee!🥳

Today, we are highlighting Varada Sharma – check out the challenge blog for more details about this sponsor.

Our DT has been generously provided with an entire new release collection from this sponsor! There were so many fun things to play with, so I did some combining:

Vicki-CIC500-Day4-VardaSharma

How fun and yummy is this?! There’s just something about cupcakes that are so fun to decorate with frosting, sugar crystals, sprinkles, fruit, etc etc and so why not do that with crafting too?!

I started with the background and decided to take the Hanging Banners Background image and print it out over some teal cardstock and then I used a Copic marker to add some shadowing around the images. I cut it out with a stitched rectangle die and layered it over a piece of yellow cardstock to match the sentiment banner…which actually looks green in the photo, but it’s yellow IRL! LOL! Then I mounted it over another A2 sized side folding teal cardstock base.

I sized and placed together the two different cupcakes from the Cupcakes, Cake Slices and Toppers set, printed it out and then colored them in with Copics. I’ve cut them out with a circle die, layered it over another circle layer cut from some silver mirror cardstock. I sponged some teal ink around the edges of the cupcake circle, added some stitch lines with a marker and then cut off the excess from the edge.

I used some glitter, glimmer and shine to add details to the cupcakes! (The photo is not showing all of the fun details at all!) Bummer…

I added a thin strip of that silver mirror cardstock across the bottom of the card front and then took the sentiment that I put together from the Celebration set, printed it out over white cardstock and then used my yellow ink to sponge over it. I fussy cut it out and then popped it up with foam tape over the silver strip.

This is going to make a fabulous card for someone’s birthday.

Challenges: